WHITE SAUCE WITH A TWIST

Many people swear by the white sauce while ordering their lasagna or preparing vegetable au gratin or simply drizzling over a juicy steak.

Whatever may be the reason, the way to arrive at this sauce is simple if you keep few points in mind. Here's my recipe for a nice herb-garlic flavored white sauce. You can easily use this for about 500 gm of pasta/vegetables/meat.

INGREDIENTS:
Amul Garlic & Herbs buttery spread - 50 gm
Refined Flour - 1 tablespoon
Amul Taaza or any other milk brand you use - 500 ml
Cheddar / Any Cheese Spread - 200 gm
Nutmeg powder & Salt to taste

METHOD:
1. Heat a saucepan and add the butter to it. I  have selected Amuls' garlic and herb variant (100 gm pack like regular Amul butter available in most stores) as it has a strong flavor and you do not need to add any garlic or herbs thereafter. 
2. Once it melts completely, add the flour. Keep the flame medium to low basis your comfort from here on. Make sure your flour does not have lumps.
3. Mix continuously till flour blends in giving you first a liquid texture, which slowly turns into a paste.
4. Now pull this mixture off the stove and add about 50 ml of milk to it. Mix well.
5. Once the milk blends in, add a further 50 ml of milk. 
Note: If you add entire milk at one go, your sauce will have lumps as too much of liquid cannot be absorbed immediately by the flour mixture and will break it up.
6. Now put the mixture back on stove stirring continuously for a minute and again pull it off the stove and add about 100 ml of milk to it.
7. Once the milk blends in, repeat step 6 twice so that the total quantity of milk used up is 400 ml. Keep remaining milk aside.
Note: This mixture of butter, flour and milk is known as Béchamel sauce.
8. Now put the mixture back on stove and start adding the cheese spread, 50 gm at a time and melting it into the mixture. I prefer a spread to grated cheese as it saves the time and trouble of grating a cheese slab.
Note: This mixture of Béchamel sauce and cheese is known as the Mornay sauce.
9. After addition of cheese is over check consistency of your sauce, if it is too thick you can add the 100 ml milk you had kept aside.
10. Add nutmeg powder basis your liking. If you do not want it you can skip its addition. 
11. Taste the mixture. If the use of butter and cheese has made the mixture salty, you do not need to add any salt. 
12. Here you go, your white sauce is ready. Enjoy it the way you want.

Do try the recipe and let me know how it turned out.
Till then, HAPPY EATING...